In typical networked computing environments, each user is provided with a computing device located near the user and that is networked with the other computing devices and with server computing devices as well as peripheral devices. However, this approach is less than advantageous for hardware management purposes. In particular, when a computing device requires maintenance or repair, IT personnel have to physically visit the location of the computing device to perform the needed maintenance or repair.
Therefore, techniques have been increasingly employed in computing environments to overcome this problem. Such techniques centralize the computing devices of users within a single location that is more conveniently accessible by IT personnel. However, these prior art techniques can be difficult to employ in relation to an existing networked computing environment in which each user has his or her own computing device located near the user.
For example, remotization techniques that employ keyboard-video-mouse (KVM) devices to transfer such KVM traffic back and forth to the centralized computing devices may have distance limitations as to how far the KVM devices can be positioned relative to the computing devices. The KVM devices may also not work with certain types of peripheral devices, especially Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices. Furthermore, new cabling may be needed to connect the KVM devices to the centralized computing devices, increasing cost. All these configurations also require management of the connections to and from the user location, which increases cost.
For this and other reasons, therefore, there is a need for the present invention.